casimir Posted 4 hours ago Posted 4 hours ago 1 hour ago, Shelton said: yeah, you are right I forgot that they increased the supply of interleague games so much that they do average about 3 per day over the course of the season, so early on you could have more days with 5 (or 7, 9, etc) for sure. Opening weekend there are five interleague matchups the next set of series has seven The third set of series has seven The fourth set has five The fifth set has seven So, I think it’s safe to say the interleague series distribution is definitely front loaded. It could be for various reasons, but if I had to guess it would be for money reasons. They probably prefer increased division matchups down the stretch to maximize drama. And to the extent these odd matchups provide a level of novelty, maybe it helps get people to the park early in the year when attendance and interest tends to lag. Ability to make up a rainout could definitely be a factor, although teams had the same issue with non-division league matchups because the teams don’t make more than one trip to any team outside of their division. That does sometimes lead to the weird late season situation where a make-up from earlier in the season is played at the opponent’s stadium with home/road flipped, which is not an option for the interleague. Anyway, it sure seems like the league is blowing through the interleague games early. Nice catch. Nice work checking out the schedule. To your point about money, yes, that's the answer to all your questions. One of the other things that popped into my head about front loaded interleague was a parallel to college football. A majority of out of conference games are played early on. Then you get your in conference games which help shape the conference races. There might be some intent behind that, too. Maybe moreso than weather concerns. Quote
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